21 Sep 2014

Though Lesotho has an explicit HIV/AIDS policy, it has not yet mainstreamed gender issues on its policy; hence officials from that country came to Botswana to bench mark on the mainstreaming of gender issues in their policy.

As the Lobatse District Gender Committee has for a long time been a centre of excellence on gender mainstreaming, the Lesotho delegation found it fit to visit the district committee to learn from them.

The Lobatse District Gender Committee has for more than two years scooped national awards on gender mainstreaming at the annual Gender Links Summit and it also represented Botswana at a regional level.

Lesotho’s Local Government HIV/AIDS focal person Mr Malefetsane Nkgaba indicated to the committee that his country is still grappling with new HIV infections especially among women.

Mr Nkgaba said, having known Botswana to be among the few African countries that have fought the HIV/AIDS pandemic, they came to learn of the country’s best practices.

Another Lesotho official, Mr Tshilisehang Tsunyane said Lesotho still has a lot of issues that need to be addressed in relation to gender as a lot of women find themselves giving birth in their homesteads without the support of their partners.

Mr Tsunyane said men are found to be still lagging behind even in understanding issues of gender as they need to equally co-exist within the society.

Therefore, he said a policy that is developed on gender will assist Lesotho to move forward even in attaining the Millennium Dvelopment Goals.

He also said though women are given a chance in leadership positions in government, as the Gender protocol states, they are however not given the necessary tools to assist them to excel in their positions.

That, he said has led to a lot of frustration on the part of women leadership as well as their service recipients.

Mr Tsunyane therefore said they intend to learn from Botswana and go back to implement strategies that they would have learnt here especially with regard to gender and HIV/AIDS.

Lobatse Gender Committee secretary Ms Kutlo Mophalane said her committee has done a lot with regard to women empowerment and male involvement especially on the committee’s annual plans.

Ms Mophalane said the committee realised that women are the hardest hit by poverty leading to more infections among them.

She said the committee therefore developed a plan that empowers women economically for them to be independent.